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A high schooler in Colorado hunts for food, carrying on a family tradition. A father devotes his life to sparing others from his son’s fate. An elementary school student in Michigan takes careful aim, making his mother proud. A mother in California grieves a son gunned down.

These are the stories of young people across America whose lives have been shaped, for better or worse, by guns.

A great rift divides Americans over gun laws, ownership and restrictions. A year ago 20 elementary students and six adults were killed during a massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., sparking a national debate about gun laws and mental health.

In the days after the shooting, public support for stricter gun control was at 58 percent, according to a Gallup poll. But nearly a year later, fewer than half of all Americans believed that gun laws need to be tightened, the same poll showed. And only 26 percent of respondents believed private handgun ownership should be banned — a record low.

In advance of the Sandy Hook shooting anniversary, Digital First Media spent several months this year traveling the country from Michigan to California to Colorado, meeting families and learning what role firearms play in the lives of their children.

Each family agreed that responsible gun ownership was imperative, but definitions of “responsible” varied widely.

It’s tough for the two sides to agree on what is right and what should be changed, if anything at all, and how to address the violence plaguing American society.

The debate has been intensified by the July 2012 massacre inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and the mass murder at an elementary school in December that year in Newtown, Conn. Are these tragedies isolated anomalies, or part of a larger problem? What can be done? What can today’s youths be taught about firearms to make a safer America?

It’s a personal debate, but also a political one. The Pew Center for Research reported earlier this year that feelings about some gun issues — such as whether tougher laws would cut down mass shootings and accidental deaths — break down largely along party lines.

“This is consistent with a widening partisan divide in overall attitudes about whether it is more important to control gun ownership or protect the rights of Americans to own guns,” according to the Pew report, published in March.

And while 54 percent of respondents said stricter gun laws would reduce the number of people killed in mass shootings, about 58 percent say the restrictions would make it harder for people to protect their families.

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Among those who told Digital First Media they believe mass shootings would be reduced by gun restrictions is Alicia Glover, a mother who moved to Michigan from Australia and is appalled by America’s gun culture. Inside her home, even the words “gun” and “bullets” are off limits.

Another Michigander, Jen Anesi, is a single mother and a strong proponent of open carry laws and a champion of the Second Amendment.

Guns “are very misunderstood and a lot of people in the U.S. — especially in some parts of the U.S. — are very uneducated about them, and as a result there is a lot of fear surrounding them,” Anesi said. “You end up with people trying to make laws as a kneejerk reaction to something horrible that did happen, but not necessarily has something to do with gun control.”

In the United States, a plurality of people who own guns do so for personal protection, according to the Pew research. Roughly 48 percent of gun owners cited protection, compared to just 26 percent of people surveyed in 1999 in an ABC News/Washington Post poll with a similar question.

This year only 32 percent of people cited hunting as the main reason for owning guns, compared to 49 percent in 1999. But that doesn’t mean hunting has disappeared.

Troy Boggs, a high school senior in southern Colorado, is an avid hunter whose goal is to shoot enough big game to help provide his family with meat for the winter.

“It’s tradition in our family,” Boggs said.

There is no specific count of the number of guns in the United States.

Why? Because no one keeps track, not even the government. In fact, it’s illegal to do so.

Organizations that research such information, such as the National Rifle Association and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, agree, however, that there are an estimated 300 million guns in the United States — roughly the same as the number of people.

No matter your views on gun rights, you are unlikely ever to be very far from a gun in America. Does that mean you’re protected or in peril? There’s no agreed upon answer. Instead, it depends on whom you ask.